The National Archives has launched the new Discovery service, a search facility that will help you find, understand and their records. The service will eventually replace the Catalogue and incorporate paid-for services such as DocumentsOnline.

“The Discovery service enables you to filter search results by subject, date and collection, and also introduces map-based searching. Millions of individual document descriptions have been tagged using more than 100 subject categories so that you can more easily navigate through our records to find the document you’re looking for.

The service is in ‘beta’ or test form at the moment, and we want your feedback on how it’s working and what could be improved. Take a look and let us know what you think! We’ll also be holding sessions on site to demonstrate the service and invite user feedback. These will take place at Kew from 11.00-13.00 on 4 August and 14.00-16.00 on 7 September. Email discovery@nationalarchives.gov.uk for more information and to let us know if you’d like to take part.

We’ll be adding new features to the Discovery service over the coming months, including advanced and saved searches and user sign-in. Keep an eye out on our Labs site for new developments.””